CPM Falling Again, Has TAG reduced Publisher Share Again?

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Are they continuing to reduce revenue share?

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      hclpdposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Yep. Noticed that, too. Appalling, to say the least.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   So currently it seems we get 1/3 of earnings and they get 2/3. That's so unfair since we do all the hard work. A bit like Amazon over halving commission on earnings over a year ago.

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      bravewarriorposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Why are we not notified when the earnings share changes?

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      AliciaCposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      How do you know this, Eugene? I'm not questioning your accuracy, I just want to know where you got the information.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Ok, I'm just speculating, I may have got it all wrong  but what does this mean on the Businesswire site?
   
   "The improvement in gross profit is a result of a decrease in publisher partner revenue shares from 56% of digital advertising revenue in fiscal 2020 to 34% in fiscal 2021 "
   
   Does it refer to us?
   
   The 56% is suspiciously close to the 60% we used to receive and that detail was removed from the Hubpages TOS a couple of years ago.
   
   https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ … er-of-2021
   
   In any case, even if I'm wrong, it's not fair that there's no longer transparency about the details of revenue share we receive.

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      hclpdposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think you're wrong here, though. If you were, they would have chimed in by now.

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         AliciaCposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I've also come to the conclusion that Eugene is not wrong. The site has had long enough to correct his response if it was inaccurate.

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      AliciaCposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I strongly agree with your last sentence, Eugene.

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      Solarasposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      If I recall, the change made in TOS was that we were to receive our percentage of earnings AFTER they had paid unspecified costs. That would suggest that we are paying for editors etc increasingly from our share and HP is not paying them from their share, before the split.
      
      So are we paying for new editors to write News articles from which we will not receive any revenue share? Will our share move down to 25% as a result of increased payroll burdens?

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      lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Just based on the quote you posted this basically means that the amount of profit the company made from us reduced. Maybe more or less but percentage-wise other sources grew more. Nothing to do with our revenue share. If it is gone up or down is a different story, but that is not what this article refers to IMHO.

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   Kenna McHughposted 3 years ago

   Please clarify the source of this information.

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      Solarasposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I believe it was on BusinessWire which I think is a Press Release site, which would mean it was from the horse's mouth.
      
      He posted a link in one of the early comments.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   I do hope I'm wrong.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   This is the TAG news release that Busineswire derived their information from.
   
   https://investors.thearenagroup.net/new … wth-fourth

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   Shesabutterflyposted 3 years ago

   I don't understand much of anything from these links, but if they were taking more than the share that was last vaguely known, would that be taken from our cpm value? I thought cpm value was determined by ad companies?
   
   My cpm's are still up from what they were Jan-mid March. My earnings from March/April were a little better than last year at this time, but views/earnings still seem pretty unpredictable.
   
   Does anyone know what this means? "...related to a strategic shift to eliminate most publisher partner guarantees near the end of fiscal 2020". We were never guaranteed anything even when we were HP. Is that simply business talk meant to confuse us? Or could it mean the decrease is not necessarily related to HP, but some of their other partners?
   
   I wish HP would be more open on this front. We deserve to know what percentage of our hard work we are actually earning from.

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      Solarasposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      To my eye, it seems that the share of impressions is what is mysterious.  We can see the pageviews, and we can see our share of impressions.  What we cannot see is the total number of impressions, which is what everyone is paid for.
      
      We are to get 60% of the impressions ad money and HP 40%, as I recall.
      
      On the one hand, so many ads on each article would indicate many more impressions than pageviews, however ad blockers and people who back out of the page because of the video or slow page load disrupt our clear view of what is actually happening with our readers.
      
      It is a very gray area, and no one wants to give us any enlightenment. Since we don't know the costs that are paid before the percentage split, we cannot know if the actual total percentage split of the impressions.  The change in the TOS from 60%/40% of income to after costs 60/40% means their is a third percentage being paid to HP; what those costs are has never been articulated, that I know of.
      
      Feel free HP to chime in and elucidate us.

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         Shesabutterflyposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         That is very true. The impressions have always been a mystery to me. Before they were more volatile than they are currently.
         
         With the new ad that gives us basically the same impressions as views, I was wondering how many more we actually had in the past that were going to HP.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   The 60/40 stipulation was removed from the TOS, presumably so our share can be varied.

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